Clothes Closet – Organized!

Our early mornings were often a flurry of “Can I wear this with that?”, “No that doesn’t match. No, its 50 degrees outside, you can’t wear spaghetti straps. No you can’t wear that. Or that.”, and “Where are my leggings?” “No, no, no…” Who wants to start their mornings with so much negativity, that is often punctuated by a fight, an argument, a panic, even tears? Not I! Here is the solution I came up with… AAAAAcchhh! This is the disaster that was my daughter’s clothing closet, that I had to walk by every day. And every morning before her shower she would stand there and pull out a skirt from the bottom of what used to be a pile of nicely folded skirts, and then she’d pull a top out of the middle of another formerly folded pile. The resulting clothing avalanches didn’t seem to bother her at all, she just stuffed them all back up in there…you can see the beauty in that plan, right? See above. I can turn a blind eye to a vomitous mess like that for only so long. So the other day, after we had gotten all the laundry caught up, we took ALL of her clothes out of that disaster of a closet and reorganized like this…

Step 1 – We got all the laundry done, and all the clothes folded properly.

Step 2 – We organized them into piles on the table by type; all the skirts on one pile, all the short-sleeved shirts on another, a pile of tank tops, a pile of long sleeved shirts, all the long jeans in another, etc…

Step 3 – Set aside any clothing that isn’t seasonally appropriate. Since it’s winter here (albeit in Southern California) we took out all the shorts, tank tops, and spaghetti straps.

Step 4 – In our case my Li’l Rosebug loves her skirts the best, and they are the most difficult to match, so I laid out all of her skirts on the table and let her find matching tops and leggings for each skirt. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, because my ‘Bug is still learning about what matches and what doesn’t. Eventually, however, we got outfits that we were both satisfied with. And not only was it a less stressful opportunity for her and me to discuss the finer points of fashion (than 5:00 in the morning!), but it gave her a real sense of “ownership” of the outfits that she created.

Step 5 – Okay, this may seem weird to you all, but after we create an outfit we unfold it, lay it out longways on the table. We use the longest piece (usually the leggings) on the bottom, then the shirt, and then the skirt. Then we roll the outfit up, tightly.

Step 6 – After her skirt and dress outfits are all completed and rolled, then we do the same thing with her jeans. Lay the jeans out longways, make outfits and then roll ’em.

Step 7 – We roll her jammies. We have been rolling her jammies for a long time, where we roll her over-sized t-shirts or nighties with her baggy shorts, and that system has been working so well that that is why I decided to try rolling her regular daytime outfits.

Step 8 – We put all of her newly rolled outfits into her closet. We put skirts and dresses on one side of the shelf and jeans outfits in the other side of the shelf.

Any clothes that didn’t get put into an outfit get put on the higher shelf, and the ‘Bug has been told she may not pull any clothes from the top – she is only allowed to pick rolled outfits to wear each day. As I do laundry I put her newly laundered clothes on that top shelf. When she gets “low” in rolled outfits, we will pull all of those laundered clothes back out on the table and repeat the process, starting at step 1 above.

We’ve been set up this way for about a week and a half so far, and it has eliminated the morning drama (at least where clothing is involved, lol!). She accepts the outfits “as rolled” because she actually created the outfits herself! And she has so many clothes we were able to roll a couple of weeks worth of outfits. Yay!

After we completed this I saw a thing on Pinterest where someone bought a set of these drawers and labelled them Monday through Friday. Then on Sunday night they stock the drawers with the child’s outfits. I really like this ides, as well, and if I can fit those drawers in her closet I may change my method! Gotta love Pinterest! You can always find a better way! Do any of you have any other creative solutions to this problem? Please share!

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One Thought on “Clothes Closet – Organized!”

That is an incredible idea, especially because it eliminates the need for extra frustration between you and R. That in itself is a HUGE savings. As a parent I hate having to waste my time and energy on arguments about petty stuff like what they are going to wear for the day. So high five to you Terri. You have always been nice and organized too which I’ve always liked. Thanks for sharing.

My frustration with my daughter was that she was putting away her clothing very sloppily , wearing only what she could see on top of the messy drawers over and over again because she could never see what was in the entire drawer and because she was on the lazy side. So a few months ago, she and I sat down, pulled all of her clothes out of all of the drawers (she keeps her clothing in a dresser rather than a closet as we are so limited in closet space), organized them by type of clothing and than color. We than folded them up small enough so that they could be put into the drawers vertical rather than horizontal. So they were color coordinated, drawer specific and best of all this allowed for her to see EVERYTHING in that drawer. Well like I said this was months ago. After reading your blog I was curious if her drawers were still looking like that (expected them not to be), but I had a huge surprise this morning and they were organized pretty much like we had originally done them to begin with. I have taken some pics and I’m going to send them to you. I am so proud of her right now. She not only took it upon herself to keep them organized, keep them vertical like we had folded them originally, (she really did hear what I had to say about the reason for it), but it’s working. It’s taking her a lot less time in the mornings to get dressed and she is wearing more than just her usual all the time. Proud mommy here this morning. Its so nice when a plan works out.

Thanks again for posting this! Nice to know that it’s not just ME that has issues with my kids closets.